Letters to the Editor

The Junior Woman’s Club of Westfield was honored to present Best Friend Animal Adoption a $13,500 check on March 14, 2018. THIS was our WHY for the Rock and Rescue fundraiser!! Thanks to the generosity of all sponsors, donors, attendees and volunteers!! A HUGE thank you to everyone! Because of your ...

Dear Editor:
I strongly urge everyone to vote for Peter Jacob in the June 5 Democratic Primary for New Jersey’s Congressional District 7. We need Peter will bring his to bring his true blue values and agenda to Congress, along with his passion, humility, energy and personal approach to issues ...

One of the responsibilities that parents take most seriously is protecting their children from injury, whether it is buckling seat belts in a car or wearing a helmet while riding a bike. And when their kids become teenagers and want to participate in sports or other activities, parents do ...

In a letter to the editor entitled “Open Letter to Mayor Brindle,” Karen Salemme wrote: “There is no room in the town administration for those who use unkind and offensive language regarding not only women but also all human beings...”
While it is your right to be offended, Ms. Salemme, I’m ...

I would like to call your attention to a Facebook post that appeared on Wednesday, April 26, on the Westfield, NJ page.* Jeff Bryk wrote the post. The post by Mr. Bryk referenced Councilwoman Neylan’s disheveled appearance during the budget meeting. In this climate of sexist awareness I was ...

Board President Gretchan Ohlig recognized Westfield High School senior Greta Frontero as 2018 New Jersey High School Journalist of the Year and winner of the 2018 Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship, a $5,000 scholarship award from the New Jersey Press Foundation. Ms. Ohlig praised Ms. Frontero ...

The following are highlights from the update that Mayor Shelley Brindle gave at Tuesday night’s town council meeting.
It has been quite a busy few weeks!
I would first like to congratulate the Greater Westfield Area Chamber of Commerce on their 70th anniversary. Councilwoman Mackey and I ...

Having chaired the town council’s finance committee in the recent past, I appreciate the hard work that goes into developing a municipal budget for a town as large and dynamic as Westfield. But as I have expressed publicly and also to the mayor and my council colleagues, I do not support the ...

To the Editor:
The Westfield Board of Health held a meeting on April 2, 2018.
The board explored additional areas of focus for this year, including mental health and addiction issues. As a result, the Westfield Regional Health Department will expand its Tobacco Age of Sale Enforcement ...

Thank You from St. Joseph Social Service Center
In recognition of National Volunteer Week, we would like to express our gratitude to the countless volunteers that serve the poor and homeless at St. Joseph Social Service Center in Elizabeth (http://www.sjeliz.org). Whether you make a sandwich, ...

This letter is in response to Councilman Frank Arena’s letter to the editor regarding Mayor Brindle’s decision to join Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bi-partisan group of mayors who fight for common sense gun safety laws throughout the nation.
First and foremost, I would like to congratulate ...

Much is being said these days about gun violence.
In fact, most recently there was a Mayors Against Illegal Guns meeting where 13 Union County Mayors signed a statement committing to the removal of illegal guns from our streets. One of this groups main tenets was to be ‘duty-bound to do ...

Dear Editor,
Kudos to the Westfield Town Council for passing their ordinance banning pet stores from selling puppies and kittens! The Council should be commended for promoting shelter and rescue animals and not supporting the atrocities that occur at puppy and kitten mills.
Puppy mills are ...

The following are highlights from the update that Mayor Shelley Brindle gave at Tuesday night’s town council meeting.
Today marks exactly 100 days since I, and the four new Council members, were sworn into office.
It has been an exhilarating and humbling experience and we are so grateful for ...

To the Editor:
As both a Westfield resident and the Senior State Legislative Director at the ASPCA for the Upper Atlantic Region, I am grateful to the Westfield Town Council for considering a ban on the sale of cats and dogs in pet shops.
New Jersey’s Pet Purchase Protection Act (PPPA) was ...

Nearly two decades ago, legendary broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw came to Westfield High School to host a “live” Town Meeting on a new network called MSNBC. The topic was school gun violence, and Brokaw chose Westfield because it had the same look, feel and demographics as a high school in Colorado ...

Throwing around words and phrases can be so inflammatory. Some people decry the use of the term “puppy mill” and prefer to call them “high volume breeders.” The reality is that these people are in business and their products are puppies. They are not animal lovers or animal haters. They are animal ...

With reference to the letter to the editor entitled “Pet Stores Offer Consumer Choice and Protection,” I would like to respond to some of the misinformation provided by the author. The author stated that New Jersey’s Pet Purchase Protection Act is the strictest animal and consumer protection law of ...

Elected officials are quick to incorporate fashionable words and phrases into their vocabulary: “proactive,” “strategic,” “sustaining.” Indeed, these terms and their derivatives each appear throughout Westfield’s 2018 municipal budget presentation (available for viewing at www.westfieldnj.gov), as ...

To the Editor:
The authors of your recently published Letters to the Editor (Good News on Keeping Puppy Mill Pets Out of Westfield and Proposed Pet Store Ordinance is a Smart Move) are misguided in their overzealous pursuit of a ban on pet stores.
First and foremost, pet stores in New Jersey ...

The Westfield council's effort to pass an ordinance banning any future pet stores from selling dogs (or cats) is a smart, compassionate, business-savvy, pro-active move. Westfield wants to join 120 other New Jersey municipalities in saying its town's values do not include being complicit with a ...

I'm well-versed in puppy mills and can tell you that ALL pet stores that sell allegedly purebreds get them from puppy mills. Why? Because no reputable breeder uses a “middle man.” There have been several pet stores in New Jersey who have been guilty of selling from puppy mills and then closed up ...

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT
I introduced the district’s chief technology officer, Brian Auker, to update Board members and the public on the status of the new district website.
Mr. Auker provided background on the extensive process involved in creating a new website, including reaching out to a ...

The following are highlights from the update that Mayor Shelley Brindle gave at Tuesday night’s town council meeting.
I want to begin by thanking the DPW, once again, for their immediate and effective clean up after last week’s snow storm which, thankfully, did not materialize to be as ferocious ...

Editor,
Please see the attached pictures and a link to a video I took today of a Westfield Parking Enforcement Officer on East Broad Street off the corner of Elm St. (The video has been edited in such a manner as to block out the head and face of the enforcement officer.) I ...

Dear Editor:
I am excited to announce that Incumbent Mayor Charles Lombardo, and his running mates Jennyfer Guerrero and Vincent Kearney, have been chosen as the candidates of the official Democratic Party of Garwood in the primary election.
Mayor Charles Lombardo, former councilman for 21 ...

This Tuesday (March 27) during our next council meeting, I, as chair of the Finance Committee, which includes Councilpersons David Contract, JoAnn Neylan and Doug Stokes, look forward to presenting the 2018 budget to the public. The primary budget objective this year was to control the tax ...

Elections do have consequences. Michelle Brindle is the Mayor of Westfield. Winning this past November’s vote by a significant margin, the mayor also brought the support of four council seats to office with her. All of them won their elections running on their party’s platform mandating changes be ...

I thought “The Mayor Offers Storm Statement” article [in The Westfield Leader] was remiss in not mentioning the injuries that occurred to some of our residents during the nor’easters earlier this month. I am not aware of all of the injuries in town but a dear friend to this community, a business ...

Following the board announcements, I noted the increased police presence at each of our ten schools, thanking the town and police department for their efforts. I also noted that we’ve been working on updating our crisis communication plan in light of today’s climate of instant ...